Flashbots Achieves Unicorn Status
Crypto funding fell on a weekly basis to $153 million compared to $219 million last week. Notably, 10 of the 15 deals announced this week secured funding within the $0-$10 million range. This is significant because it continues a trend of crypto VCs increasingly allocating capital towards early-stage funding rounds and being more selective in later stages. Our team highlighted this trend in our Q2 2023 Crypto Fundraising Report.
Infrastructure-related projects received the most funding this week, with seven deals totaling $100 million. Flashbots received $60 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation in its Series B round, making the project one of four that have raised at unicorn valuations in 2023. Interestingly, Flashbots picked investors based on a reverse pitch format where VCs presented their case for decentralization to win allocation in the round. Flashbots focuses on Maximal Extratable Value (MEV), utilizing their services as block producers on Ethereum to extract value by reordering, including, or excluding transactions within a block. This has become an extremely lucrative business and a key component in the Ethereum ecosystem. Our team covered MEV in depth as part of our Crypto Concepts series.
Funding by Category
Funding by Deal Stage
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WEEKLY RECAP Total funding has rebounded from last week’s abnormally low amount, increasing 251% from $44 million to $154 million. Infrastructure was the leading category, raising $99 million across 13 deals. This week’s largest deal fell into the Infrastructure bucket; 0G Labs, a former Deal of The Week, raised $40 million in a Seed round, bringing its total funding to $75 million. From a deal stage perspective, funding was concentrated...
WEEKLY RECAP Weekly funding sharply declined, falling 81% from $181 million to $35 million, with total deal count dropping 31% from 26 to 18. The decreases can potentially be attributed to projects foregoing announcements in light of a week filled with U.S. election headlines. 77% of funding fell into the Infrastructure bucket, totaling $27 million across seven deals. Similarly, funding was concentrated in Pre-Seed and Seed deal stages, collectively comprising...
WEEKLY RECAP Weekly funding increased 65% from $103 million to $170 million despite the deal count falling 15% from 26 to 22. Eight companies raised $10 million or more this week, in contrast to just 10 companies combined in the last two weeks. The bulk of funding was concentrated in the Infrastructure category, with projects raising $112 million across 12 deals. DeFi was the second most funded category, with $48...
